Plant a living centerpiece

Decorate your holiday table with festive "shoe box" planters

Peter O. Whiteley,

Creating a centerpiece scaled for a big holiday dinner is a real challenge, especially if you've extended your dining table to seat Aunt Sadie and her brood. But small bouquets get lost on a crowded tabletop and oversize arrangements can end up blocking views and spilling over plates.

What you need are long, narrow containers you can fill with greenery and flowers that stay well below eye level. Finding such vessels can be difficult, but making them is easy ― with shoe box-size plastic storage containers. Something wonderful happens when you fill them with living plants and trim the boxes with festive ribbon. Instantly, you have a centerpiece elegant enough to grace any table, and you can make it as long as you want simply by adding more boxes.

For the arrangement shown here, we used three boxes and filled them with indoor plants readily available at nurseries and floral shops: florist's chrysanthemum, kalanchoe, 'Ocean Spray' maidenhair fern, and variegated ivy. In mild-winter areas, you can substitute cool-season flowers such as primroses, pansies, and Johnny-jump-ups. Since the boxes are relatively shallow, plants should be no larger than 4-inch size. Once planted, the centerpiece can be displayed for a week or two. Water sparingly to keep soil evenly moist, not soggy. After the parties are over, repot the plants individually for indoor display; cool-season flowers can be set out in the garden.

Shoe box-size plastic containers cost less than $2 each at most home supply centers. You can mask the boxes with any variety of materials, from rice paper to satin ribbon. Coordinate the color with the flowers and your tablecloth.